interesting panalogy.
(Note, I believe that's Hofstadter or Minsky's term for an
analogy or parallel between analogies; I will denote the panalogy
relation by ::~). This is from my dad -- and it was a bit
off the cuff, so I'll do some editing as I go along to develop
this idea further (thanks dad ;):
atoms:people::people:galaxies
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:social systems
of resource allocation and social control (means of production and
relations of production)
One of the reasons it is "spurious" is that while people stand in the
relationship to atoms of "are larger than", more characteristically
the relationship is "are comprised of" -- whereas galaxies are not
comprised of people! (Although social systems are.) So let's correct
the first analogy a little bit:
atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social
control (means of production and relations of production)
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher: ?
But, uh oh, now that we've moved that final term across the "::~",
what should the "?" at the end be?
I think we should be clear that in the second analogy, a
"researcher" is some type of /scientific mind/ -- so the best
thing I can think to put there is /scientific discourse/ or
/scientific bodies of knowledge/ -- i.e., the "emerged"
system that is what the minds fit into. Maybe we would just
say this:
atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and social control
In other words, in this panalogy, "::~" plays the role of a sort of "theorizing"
or "virtualizing" relation. While people tend to agree that there really are
atoms, I think the same people would agree that a "piece of scientific
knowledge" is a virtual thing. (Actually, thanks to quantum mechanics,
the two types of objects may be fairly similar: both of them are a sort of
density that condenses into certain embodiments, on average, but which
may in general be widely dispersed; e.g. ask 100 people what a derivative
represents and you won't get 100 different answers, but you may still
get more than just one answer.)
The curious thing for me with this adjusted panalogy is that it posits
/scientific discourse/ as a prototypically "social science and economics"
kind of thing. Well, it's true that my dad is an economist -- but maybe
there's something more going on than just a matter of personal preference.
I think it's fundamentally quite hard to /think/ of anything that doesn't have
to do with "allocations of resources" (distributions of particles in space
and time) and "control systems" (cybernetics, whether 'social' in nature
or not).
It is now tempting to apply the "::~" relation one more time to generate
a structure like:
atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
metaphysical/mystical knowledge:philosophers/mystics ::
philosophers/mystics:theories of theories of systems of
resource allocation and social control
although one the problem with doing this is that we've now invited
ourselves to generate a huge tower of "::~" analogies, but we're
already very quickly running out of words and ideas to put into
them. So we might like to see some sort of closure or convergence
apply. Luckily, I think I have an idea for that:
atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and
social control
::~
people:?::?:theories of theories of systems of resource allocation and
social control
In other words, "metaphysical/mystical knowledge" is just the experience
of being human! We're now left wondering, what is that thing that is
comprised of humanness? But we found that before --
atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and
social control
::~
people:social systems of resource allocation and social
control::social systems of resource allocation and social
control:theories of theories of systems of resource allocation and
social control
This leaves us with one extended analogy in place of the panalogy:
atoms:people
::
people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::
social systems of resource allocation and social control:theories of
theories of systems of resource allocation and social control
Remember, ":" here basically says "are comprised of" (read right
to left). So how is it that the DOUBLE THEORIZATION of social
systems are comprised of the social systems themselves?!?
It's tempting to just replace this final confusing term with a more
natural term like "history". (And the Marxist insinuations
that we got started with, albeit parenthetically, might be
satisfied by that approach.) But let's not, in that case, forget
where this thing came from.
atoms:people
::
people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::
social systems of resource allocation and social control:history
Notice that we've moved from a spatio-temporal relationship
(atoms configure themselves into things called people that
then subsist in time) to a more temporo-spatial relationship
(social systems of resource allocation and social control have
dynamics which play out and rearrange themselves in space, i.e.
by a mapping into "the historical record").
In other words, "theorization" is basically a mapping into
another (set of) dimension(s), and whereas "comprising" is
also (only?) conceivable as a sort of /mapping by extension
and systematization/ within any given (set of) dimension(s).
Because we don't have so many dimensions to work with,
nor so many ideas (e.g. atoms, extension, systematization;
concept, parallel, analogy), the map is not the territory, but
the map of the /mapping process/ is on the original map.
(Or whatever other Borgesian thing best describes the idea!)
Well, I don't think I've quite exhausted these themes, but
maybe I've spent enough time on them for the moment.
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